Playing God
' |image= |series= |production=40512-437 |producer(s)= |story= Jim Trombetta |script= Jim Trombetta and Michael Piller |director= David Livingston |imdbref=tt0708580 |guests=Geoffrey Blake as Arjin, Ron Taylor as Klingon Chef, Richard Poe as Gul Evek, Chris Nelson Norris as Trajok |previous_production=Shadowplay |next_production=Profit and Loss |episode=DS9 S02E17 |airdate= 27 February 1994 |previous_release=(DS9) Shadowplay (Overall) Masks |next_release= (DS9) Profit and Loss (Overall) Eye of the Beholder |story_date(s)=Unknown (2370) |previous_story=(DS9) Shadowplay (Overall) Eye of the Beholder |next_story=(DS9) Profit and Loss (Overall) Genesis }} =Summary= A Trill initiate named Arjin comes to DS9 for field training. As part of the program, an initiate must spend time with a joined Trill who serves as 'field docent." For the initiate it is a time to see how a joined Trill lives and interacts with those around them. For the docent it is a time to evaluate the initiate. The symbiont Dax has a reputation for being hard on Trill initiates. In fact, when Curzon Dax served as field docent for Jadzia, he recommended her termination from the program. Because of this, Jadzia intends to go easy on Arjin, though she finds him unfocused and a bit arrogant. The next day Dax and Arjin travel to the Gamma Quadrant to conduct a survey. While there, the starboard nacelle of the runabout snags a strange energy formation from a subspace interphase pocket. They return with it to DS9, only to find that it is an expanding protouniverse and will destroy the station if they don't get it back where it belongs. In the midst of this crisis, Dax confronts Arjin about his goals in life. The young initiate reacts badly at first but eventually comes around and even plays a key role in helping Dax take the energy formation back to its home. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # Arjin first encounters Dax playing Tongo with Quark and his pals. He enters the bar just as she makes a big win. At first an unhappy Quark grouses at him to leave. Then Dax comes to his rescue, and Quark invites the initiate to join the game. When Arjin demurs, Dax offers to escort him to his quarters. Quark immediately protests her departure, evidently wanting to regain some of his losses. What's really odd is that Dax leaves her winnings behind on the table! Personally, given the Ferengi reputation for sticky fingers, I would have filled a bag with latinum before I sauntered out. Quark knows that he would be in serious trouble if he tried to keep the latinum for himself! # Arjin's knowledge about Jadzia seems to fluctuate with the moment as needed. At one point he reveals that he knows she completed only third-level flight experience in her last year of training. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to know that Curzon recommended her termination, that she reapplied, and only then was accepted. If I recall, this was a big deal. I believe Equilibrium establishes that Jadzia was the only Trill ever to wash out of the program, reapply, and be joined. If Arjin could discover a fairly obscure fact like when Jadzia completed her flight training, how could he not know the major event in her path to joining? Was all the information about her reapplication buried by the Symbiosis Commission? That would make sense, as it would allow the Symbosis Commission to better control the quality of applicants for joning, while reducing the chances of failed applicants lodging an appeal. # At one point Dax confronts Arjin over his lack of goals. She tells him that the influence of the symbiont is very strong and the host must be equally as strong. Otherwise the symbiont will overwhelm him. I find Dax's advice intriguing because apparently it is given from firsthand experience! Let's review. Jadzia describes her pre-joined self as the "quietest, shiest, most withdrawn woman you've ever known." While it is true that this changed a bit after she was challenged by Curzon's recommendation for dismissal, I would still classify Jadzia as reserved, polite—even a bit aloof—when she arrived at DS9 after her joining. In her own words, she was attempting to live on a "higher plane" (see the conversation she had with Bashir in A Man Alone). In fact, up until this episode - with a few hints dropped here and there - Jadzia Dax has operated well within the boundaries of the descriptors "reserved" and "polite." So what gives with the sudden emergence of the towel-clad, Galeo-Manda-style wrestling, black-hole drinking, Ferengi-ear-flicking version of Dax in this episode? My guess is that the symbiont memories finally have started to overwhelm her. (She admits as much, by the way, at the end of the episode in her final talk with Arjin. Please understand. I am not complaining. Ifs about time this character got some life. In fact, I hereby vote to christen this Dax the "new and improved.") She could have developed a way of gaining more understanding of the Symbiont. # Does anyone else find it interesting that this rare opportunity for joining would be extended to a person like Jadzia, who would then spend her life doing really dangerous stuff practically every week? How else is the symbiont expected to cultivate worthwhile memories? # There has to be a time skip near the end of this episode, but I can't find a good place for it. Sisko decides to send the protouniverse back to the Gamma Quadrant. O'Brien beams it on board the Rio Grande - positioned right next to the station. Arjin says he's firing thrusters. An external shot shows us the runabout moving away from DS9. The scene cuts to an interior shot of the cabin. We hear O'Brien say that energy readings are holding. Dax tells Arjin to take the vessel to 50 'kph." Arjin replies that they will reach the wormhole in 17 seconds. For the sake of argument, lets forget about acceleration. . Presumably 'kph" stands for kilometers per hour. I suppose its possible it could mean something else, but I doubt it. If the runabout is traveling 50,000 meters an hour, it's traveling approximately 833 meters per minute and approximately 14 meters per second. Since the runabout started out at the station and flew for 17 seconds, the wormhole is only 238 meters from DS9. That's about half the width of the saucer section on the Enterprise. This cannot be right! Think back when we saw the Enterprise docked at DS9 during the premiere, Emissary. The saucer section was a bit smaller than the habitat ring (that's the middle ring). According to this episode the wormhole is about the same distance from the station as Ops is from the habitat ring. If DS9 is only 238 meters from the wormhole, it is in constant danger of a ship emerging from the wormhole and running into it! (There's a simple solution to this conundrum. The episode loses time somewhere in this sequence. But where?) Any loss of time in this sequence is most likely to occur between the runabout moving away from DS9 and the cut to the interior. ''' # There are two back-to-back navigational heading problems as Arjin attempts to negotiate his way through the wormhole while avoiding those gigantic vertiron nodes (which, of course, we've never seen before, but they look really cool). First Dax tells Arjin there's a node to starboard at '037 mark 7." This is close enough to be correct. Then she tells him there's a node to port at "030 mark 51 ." This is not correct. If the node was to port, the first number should be in the range 181 through 359—assuming a relative orientation (which seems appropriate, since they are in the middle of a wormhole having traveled who knows how far from DS9). '''These numbers could refer to angles away from the runabout’s direction of travel. "You're still thinking with gravity. Try turning the runabout 'upside-down' and the numbers will make the runabout turn to port. Remember that there is no upside-down in space." Changed Premises # Just after coming on board the station, Arjin tells Bashir that more than five thousand candidates qualify for the training program each year but on average only three hundred symbionts are available for joining. That's a ratio of at least one in sixteen. During Invasive Procedures, Dax said that only one Trill in ten is joined. Note that she did not say that only one Trill candidate for joining in ten gets a worm. Aside from the fact that the numbers are off, does everyone on Trill become a candidate for the program at one time or another? Many of them could be rejected after initial testing. # After telling Arjin about her dismissal as an initiate, reapplication, and the eventual assignment of the Dax symbiont, Jazdia tells him that she isn't quite sure why Curzon didn't object to her receiving his slug when he died. Wait a minute: The episode Dax establishes that the new host gets the memories of the old host. Why doesn't she know why he didn't object? Maybe Curzon and the Dax Symbiont agreed to bury those memories. Equipment Oddities # After the runabout snags the strange energy formation, Arjin calls Dax's attention to something on one of his screens. She gets out of her chair, sidles over, and bends forward to peruse his monitor. Obviously she just wanted to stretch her legs because I find it unthinkable that she couldn't just hit a few buttons and transfer the image to one of her displays. (Either that or she just wanted to get close enough to Arjin to rattle him with her perfume.) She probably wants to make sure he is operating the scanners properly. # Although the whole subplot dealing with the Cardassian vole infestation is delightful, O'Brien must continually overlook the obvious and easy solution. Why can't he program the transporter to look for Cardassian voles and just beam them off the station? Kira picks one up on her tricorder, so obviously the voles are detectable. And just where would O’Brien beam the voles to? Nit Central # Alfonso Turnage on Friday, July 23, 1999 - 1:24 am: Regarding the "Equipment Oddity" from Playing God on Pg. 155 of the guide concerning O'Brien beaming the voles. Since the voles would obviously not walk to or from a transport pad, it would take twice as much the normal energy. If there were a lot of voles, O'Brien might have deemed it "energy inefficient." Unless they were close enough to each other for a large number to be caught in a single transporter beam. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, September 14, 2000 - 1:49 am: Why did the computer say the level & section numbers instead of just saying Quark's, or at least "Quark's on level 7, section 5"? Probably a programming change. # Jadzia said she heard Curzon was dying and submitted her name to be the new Dax host and Curzon did not object. In Emissary, Jadzia had a flashback which showed Dax being transplanted and Curzon was still alive. However, in Let He Who Is Without Sin... it was said that Curzon died while having Jamaharon on Risa and Jadzia had memories of his death. Perhaps Curzon was temporarily revived on Risa, and was kept alive long enough for the trip home, allowing Dax to be placed in Jadzia, thus giving Jadzia memories of Curzon’s death. # Mike Nuss on Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 9:54 am: Maybe I misunderstood, but it seems they just dropped the proto-universe off in the Gamma Quadrant. Isn't it going to keep expanding, eventually destroying "our" universe? ScottN on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 12:30 pm: I believe they dropped it off inside the wormhole, not in the GQ. =Notes= Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine